1. Philosophical Background People sometimes behave in ways that benefit others, and they sometimes do this while knowing that their helpful behavior will be costly, unpleasant, or dangerous. But at least since Plato’s classic discussion in the second book of the Republic, debate has raged over why people behave in these ways. Are their motives altruistic, or is their behavior ultimately motiva...

The treatment of chronic pain patients includes beliefs, attitudes, values and behavior modifications. Dysfunctional beliefs about pain and management can become the central problem and determine the treatment's outcome. Among the important beliefs for the management of chronic pain, self-efficacy deserves to be highlighted. The concept of self-efficacy, developed by Bandura, is the belief on t...

This historical and bibliographic study aimed to understand how Nursing was organized to support care in transplantation. The HISA, LILACS, BDENF, PERIENF and DEDALUS databases were consulted, and thirteen references were found, ten of which were scientific articles, two were master's dissertations and one was a doctoral thesis. The span of time chosen for study ranges from the date of the firs...

What could be more different and unrelated than elementary physics and consciousness? The prevailing view is that consciousness is something that emerges in complex physical systems. Yet with all we know from cognitive neuroscience today, there seems to be no biophysical process that should of necessity produce sensations, experience, or self awareness (3 different things) as a byproduct. Altho...

According to Stephen Finlay, 'A ought to X' means that X-ing is more conducive to contextually salient ends than relevant alternatives. This in turn is analysed in terms of probability. I show why this theory of 'ought' is hard to square with a theory of a reason's weight which could explain why 'A ought to X' logically entails that the balance of reasons favours that AX-es. I develop two theor...

This volume is about the many ways we perceive. Contributors explore the nature of the individual senses, how and what they tell us about the world, and how they interrelate. They often represent competing views: for instance, some argue that perception uses the senses in concert, while others are content, at least for present purposes, to leave unchallenged the traditional assumption that we p...